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Some of the International 
Aspects of the Cuban Question 

ANNUAL ADDRESS 

Before the Pennsylvania State Bar 
Association 



At Delaware Water Gap, Friday, 
July 8, 1898 



by 



John V. L. Findlay 



of the 

Baltimore Bar 



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SOME OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS 
OF THE CUBAN QUESTION. 

BY HON. JOHN V. L. FINDLAY. 

The President of this Association, in conveying to me 
its invitation to make the annual address on this occasion, 
stated that, while it was nsiial to take npsome theme of inter- 
state or international interest, yet a very large liberty of choice 
was left to the speaker. At this time, however, it did not seem 
that there was any reason for departing from the nsnal range 
of topics indicated, but a fitness possibly in the selection of 
some theme suggested by the unfortunate condition of affairs 
in which we find the country involved. I do not flatter 
myself at all that I shall be able to make any contribution 
to the literature of the question, either novel in the subject- 
matter itself or in the mode of its presentation ; and I am 
well aware that there may be an objection to the selection of 
such a theme, vigorously expressed in the old maxim " Inter 
arma silent leges," and that anything I can say will savor 
more or less of a post mortem deliverance in the nature of 
" Crowner's quest law." 

There is much more than a mere matter of sentiment 
involved in the declaration of adherence, in time of war, to 
one's country, whether right or wrong, and no man, in my 
opinion, has a right to say anything or do anything that will 
chill the enthusiasm of the people, or impair the vigor of the 
government in such a crisis. The accepted theory of war, 
outside of Rousseau and other dreamers, is that the nation 
considered as a whole, and the people composing it indi- 
vidually, are each and all involved in a common hostility ; 
and, although it is quite impossible as matter of fact for the 
whole population, or its individual units, to participate in 
an actual passage at arms, with the combatants on the other 
side, likewise engaged, yet as matter of law, there is no 
escape for either party to the conflict, from the liabilities and 



2 

obligations of such a predicament. A man may feel that a 
war is foolish, he may at heart be opposed to all wars as 
unphilosophieal and unchristian, he may even cherish the 
notion that war is but systematic homicide and trespass com- 
bined and conducted on a gigantic scale under the sanction 
of law, but witii no binding force uponhis individual con- 
science, as the higher law which he at his peril, between his 
Maker and himself, is bound to obey; but, when the war is 
actually on, he becomes a party to it whether he wills it or 
not, and when his fellow men, as his representatives, engaged 
in the discharge of a duty common alike to him and them, 
are risking their lives on the land and sea, for his protection, 
he has no right, measured not by the highest, but by tlie lowest 
standard of duty, except to submit to the inevitable. If he 
can render no other service to the government, he can at least 
hold his tongue and suffer the stings of conscience in silence. 
It may be well for such a person indeed to challenge his con- 
science and probe his consciousness tothebottoai lest there be 
lurking in some hidden corner of his nature some other motive 
so secreted or so slyly and unconsciously working that what is 
mistaken for a deliberate judgment on the obligations of duty 
may be, after all, some selfish interest or tiie importunate 
prompting of the instinct of self-preservation. 

It would be, therefore, not only idle at this time to 
attempt the discussion of the causes which have produced 
the present hostilities between our country and Spain, but, so 
far as any discussion of them would or might involve any 
unfavorable criticism upon the action of our Government, 
the attempt might well be characterized as ill-timed and 
unpatriotic. Fortunately, however, I can approach the sub- 
ject, not only from the standpoint of one who goes with his 
country, right or wrong, a sentiment in time of war which I 
heartily endorse, but also from a clear conviction, both upon 
principle and authority, such as the case permits, that the 
country is absolutely right. 

The principal question underlying the whole contro- 
Z^ versy is the right of one sovereign power in the family of 



nations to forcibly intervene in tlie domestic affairs of 
another. Sometimes the qnestion is put as to whetlier snch 
intervention is justifiable on one moral ground or the other; 
as, for example, whether it would iiavc been lawful to have 
intervened between Turkey and Armenia, or between Greece 
and Turkey in the recent disturbance of the relations between 
those countries ; but this mode of putting the question loses 
sight of the principle involved. Once conceding the right to 
intervene at all, it must be obvious to every one that upon 
a sovereign power there can be no legal restriction, imposed 
limiting the exercise of its discretion in determining the time 
when, and the circumstances in which, such intervention is 
proper; that this consequence flows logically and necessarily 
from the attribute of sovereignty, and that while it should 
be carefully and sparingly asserted, a denial of the j)ower 
would be equivalent to the denial of the right of every State 
to determine for itself what makes for its own safety and 
tlie common weal. 

It is to be observed that llie principle of forcible inter- 
vention, as I have stated it, recognizes the riglit as one of 
the essential attributes of sovereignty, and of course, as sov- 
ereignty inheres in all the Powers, it follows that each one 
has the right, and herein lies the real and only ciieck upon 
its abuse, because no intervention can be undertaken without 
establishing a precedent, and that precedent, if not founded 
in justice, both logic and tradition teach, may with confi- 
dence be expected to return at some inopportune crisis to vex 
its authors. 

The strongest argument tiiat can be made against the 
right of interference seems to me to overlook the fact that, in 
abstract contem])lation of law, sovereignty in the nature of 
things is an attribute of power upon wiiich no restriction can 
be imposed, for the reason that the admission of the right to 
limit it by any external authority carries with it a denial of 
the attribute itself, and the argument which is based upon 
its liability to abuse by some particular State loses much of 
its force in the consideration that the State affected is not only 



on its good behavior before the world, or the other members 
of the tiamily, but in wliatever evil course it may pursue 
gives a bond to fate with the certainty that the obligee will 
sooner or later call for redemption. Injustice compounds its 
interest for nations as well as individuals. Each State, while 
reserving the right to intervene in its own discretion, cannot 
be insensible to the enlightened opinion of the rest of the 
States, but it matters not by what limitations and restrictions 
this sovereign right may be restrained, or what may be the 
conditions on which it may properly be exerted, it would 
seem reasonable to contend that no State has the right to deny 
it to any other State, for, by the act of so doing, the State 
that negatives the right affirmed by the other becomes an 
intervening State itself, which, ex-hypoihesi, it has no right 
to become. More fairly stated, perhaps, counter-intervention, 
while it may be maintained on the ground that the State exer- 
cising it is within its right as a member of the family of States, 
so long as it defends the principle of non-intervention in the 
internal affairs of another State, because, by so doing it is really 
intervening in a matter that is external rather than internal as 
between it and the conflicting States ; yet, nevertheless, any 
intermeddling in a quarrel outside of the limits of territorial 
sovereignty not based on might, necessarily implies the right to 
intervene; and it is in view of this as well as of other con- 
tradictions in applied international law that led Wheaton to 
declare, in summing up the progress of the science from the 
age of Grotius to his own,' that intervention was an undefined 
and undefinable exception to the general stability of the 
system. 

Ponieroy, one of the clearest of our thinkers as well as 
one of the ablest of American writers on the subject of 
municipal as well as international law, has expressed the 
same idea as Wheaton, only in a little different form. He 
says that the subject of intervention has not been an.d per- 
haps cannot bo regulated by positive international law. " It 
must be relegated to the domain of those high ])olitics, those 
principles of expediency which control the conduct, both 



domestic and foreign, of nations.'' The obvious reason, it 
would seem, why it is an exception undefined and undefinable 
in the opinion of Wlieaton, and tliat it cannot be regulated 
by positive international law in the view of Pomeroy, is that 
there is no central authority that can assign limits to the 
exercise of the sovereign power of the respective States, and 
there is not likely cither in the near or remote future to 
arise such a power except in the imagination of the poet, 
for the reason that no nation will and, in my humble opinion, 
can safely deny tt) itself the sovereign right of determining 
for itself under a solenin sense of responsibility to its own 
conscience and due regard for the rights of others what 
"makes for its own safety and honor. The claim that such a 
doctrine will necessarily lead to an abuse of power by the 
military as contrasted with the commercial nations of the 
world, and to that extent would seriously interfere with the 
progress of the United States, we will let the Deweys, the 
Hobsons and the Schleys answer. 

The rule of international law against intervention as 
applied in Europe in preserving the sovereign autonomy of 
the European States as they now exist and as applied in the 
United States in preserving the Americas free and disen- 
tangled from Euro])ean policies, is founded on no positive 
comi)act, but was originated in the first instance, and is oper- 
ative now simply as a rule of policy which, it was believed, 
would conserve tlie best interests of both sets of powers, but it 
is a rule that has been broken by Europe more than once and 
which the United States is breaking now. Self-interest after 
all is the governor that regulates both the national and the 
individual machine, and the infinite iuterdependencies of 
society, international as well as municipal, constitute the real 
salvation of the State. It is the nice balance of these inter- 
ests that preseives (lie Balance of Power itself, and with- 
out the constant operation of motives springing from such 
sources, the rule of public law founded on non-intervention 
would have no existence outside of the lecture-room and the 
text books. Otiier motives are fickle, haphazard and unre- 
liable in their operation, but interest is as stable and certain 



6 

in ils results as tlie law of gravitation itself. Nor would it 
sccin that the contradiction spoken of can be avoided hy 
inducing a concert of States to undertake the task of inter- 
vening, because, eacli being sovereign in its relations to the 
others, a combination could not change or affect this relation, 
however much it might divide the responsibility in any 
particular case of interference. But this right is not an 
attribute of sovereignty to be supported on abstract grounds, 
merely, without any connection with the real and prac- 
tical considerations that affect the welfare of States, but 
in its last analysis, stands for the natural right of 
self-protection, which in both individuals and States is fun- 
damental and indispensable. It has been contended by 
writers and professors of the highest authority, and indeed 
by publicists generally, that the right of a sovereign State 
to order and administer its own domestic affairs as it pleases, 
without the supervision or interference of a neighboring 
State is a sort of axiom, the denial of which, or the subver- 
sion of which, would be fatal to the existence of the basic 
j)rinciplc upon which international law is founded. It is 
chiimed by the advocates of this proposition that non-iutor- 
fcrcnce as a legal duty and not mei'ely a passive abstention 
tVom motives of expediency originates also in the very idea of 
sovereignty, and that it would not be possible upon any 
other ])rinciple to presei've the obligatory force of a system 
of rules and regulations, which, unlike the municipal code, 
derive their sanction from the consent of the parties. A man 
obeys the laws of his country as a rule of action laid down 
by a supei'ior to an inferior under penalties for disobedience 
which those laws prescribe ; but nations, in their intercourse 
with each other, yield obedience to the rules of international 
law, as jiarties to an imj)licd compact, which no recog- 
nized authority has the power to enforce, the only sanc- 
tion being the coercive jjower of public opinion, self- 
interest, or in some flagrant case, the exertion of the military 
power. It is the essential nature of this compact that no 
party to it shall have the right to go outside of the munici- 



pal jurisdiction within Avliich its sovereignty is complete, for 
tl)e purpose of inviuling the jurisdiction of another power 
equally sovereign within its municipal sphere, on some ques- 
tion of purely municipal concern; for, the moment such an 
extra-territorial excursion is sanctioned as a matter of legal 
right, there must of necessity be an end to the idea of sover- 
eignty upon which the whole system depends. The 
symmetry and the integrity alike of the system, these 
advocates hold, are capable of being preserved only 
by a rigid adherence to the doctrine, and that the recog- 
nition of any other pi-iuciple would be destructive to the 
peace and ultimately to the very existence of international 
autonomy. It has even been urged by some writers that, 
after all, there is not much difference between international 
and municipal law in respect to the sources of their authority ; 
that no law can be enforced, without the sustaining power of 
public opinion ; and that consent is as much an implied 
factor in the jural obligations of nations as individuals. 

In support of the proposition, many auxiliary arguments 
from the domain of morals ai'e conscripted into service, and 
among others it is insisted that forcible intervention result- 
ing in war entails upon the intervening State more misery 
than it can hope to alleviate, and that no possible service 
it can render in the cause of humanity to the subjects of 
another power can compensate for the lives of its own citi- 
zens, who will inevitably perish as a consequence of inter- 
ference ; that national duty, like charity, begins and ends 
at home, and many other wise saws of similar pith and 
moment. 

In reply to this, it is to be observed, first, that the 
questibn at issue is not, what will be the consequences of 
forcible intervention, nor whether war is a relic of barbar- 
ism, out of date and out of touch with the advanced morality 
of the age, but a question pure and simple as to tiie naked 
sovereign right of one nation to impress its individuality 
upon another by the agency of the military power, on a 
claim that it is responsible to no other State for its conduct, 



except so far as the third State, or a combination of States, 
in the exercise of the same right, on the same claim, may 
choose to hold it responsible. The sovereij^jnty that is 
affirmed in respect to one State must, of course, be affirmed 
as to all ; and the logic of the proposition carries with it 
both the right of intervention and counter-intervention with 
no ulterior responsibility in law except to the intervening 
power, and this naked right, abstracted from every other 
consideration, originates in the fundamental conception 
of sovereignty ifself. In the second place, T observe, that 
niit only is this true in principle, but it is established by the 
piactice of all nations, in their dealings with each other. It 
would be superfluous to prove this by reference to recent or 
more ancient examples, and the only effect of such an attempt 
would be to protract the agony of a dry discussion without at 
the same time adding anything to the common stock of 
knowledge. It may not be out of place, however, to refer to 
the fact that the execution of Louis XVI, and the excesses of 
the French Revolution were the controlling causes that fiually 
induced Great Britain to join the coalition of the continental 
powers in an efiort to suppress the first Republic of France, 
and although Mr. Pitt expressly disclaimed any intention to 
interfere in her internal affairs, it is obvious that such a dis- 
claimer must be accepted with some grains of diplomatic 
allowance. Again, it is well known that absolutism, taking 
fright iu Europe at the hoiinei rouge, at the close of the 
Napoleonic wars, sought refuge in the principles of the Holy 
Alliance, which went further, perhaps, in denying the sanc- 
tity of infra-territorial sovereignty than was ever attempted 
before or since. Stripped of all verbiage and the high moral- 
ity which was urged as their pretext, these principles declare 
in effect, that any popular uprising in any State, the object of 
which is to overthrow the existing government, furnishes 
good cause for every other State, in the interest of the general 
security to intervene ; and Spain, with whom we are now 
dealing, was among the first to suffer the consequences of a 
l)ra(tical application of the doctrine, at the hands of France. 



9 

Nothing could have been more sweeping than this declaration, 
which at the same time was made all the more impres<^ive 
after its first enunciation in Paris, in 1815, by the deliberate 
confirmation of successive congresses of tiie Powers at 
Vienna, Verona and Laybach. It is true that the general 
commotion and insecurity of Europe can be pleaded as 
affording some reasonable justification for a policy so radical 
and extreme, but it is difficult to perceive how any practical 
expounder of that fluctuating rule, colored by interest and 
called international law, can deny that the right of forcible 
intervention has not only been practiced, but proclaimed by 
the very Powers which profess to limit it to the external 
relations of States. 

But it will be observed that these examples, and many 
others which could be cited, are drawn from instances of 
actual interference with those members ot the family of 
States which are recognized as being within the sphere and 
under the protection of international law. What becomes of 
the principle and the rule when the observation takes a wider 
range, may be learned from the history of Great Britain in 
India, and the dealings of all European Powers with tiie weak 
peoples and tribes of Asia, Africa and Australasia. The 
whole difficulty of the case grows out of a failure to discrim- 
inate between what is purely legal and what is purely moral, 
and in the necessity for the application of restraints of some 
kind upon the exercise of unlimited power to forget that these 
naturally and spontaneously spring from the relations of the 
parties and the endless ramifications of self-interest. 

Certain it is that whatever may be the reverence felt for 
the rule elsewhere, the people of the United States must 
forget their own history and most cherished traditions before 
they can deny the right of one State to interfere with another 
in a mere matter of domestic or municipal cognizance; and 
this forgetfulness will not be excused or palliated by a too 
minute analysis of the motives which brought to our relief 
the powerful aid of the French Monarchy. It is a good 
maxim in all circumstances not to look a gift horse in the 



10 

mouth ; nor must it be forgotten tliat while duty and obh'ga- 
tion are in many cases the correlatives of power and right, 
it is not always the case, and it by no means follows, that 
because a nation has the right to intervene, that it is its duty 

'to do so. 

All that I am contending for now is that it cannot be 
said that the sovereign right does not exist ; for, if that can 
be established, I don't think there would be any one bold 
enough to deny that the question of duty was one that no 
one but itself could possibly determine. The considerations 
which affect this branch of the subject are ethical rather than 
legal, and while we often hear it said that we are not the 
kce[iers of another's conscience, it will surely be admitted 
that we are the natural guardians of our own, and whatever 
appeals to this conscience is a matter of purely domestic 
concern. The fact that there is 0})pressi''>n and starvation in 
other lands far removed from our shores, and existing under 
conditions which would render any attempt at relief on our 
part impossible, if not quixotic, afiords no reason why we should 
turn away the wretched who are V)egging at our very doors 
and whom it is quite possible to relieve without consequences 
fatal to ourselves. The man who finds an argument for 
doing nothing in the impossibility of accomplishing every- 
thing is not a sound or a safe guide. The barbarities of the 
Turk in Armenia may have surpassed in cruelty the atrocities 
of the Spaniard in Cuba, but the difference to us is that the 
conflagration in one case is so distant that we can only catch 
the reflection of it on the horizon ; whereas, in the other we 
are singed and burned by a fire in our neighbor's house. 
It is possible to get to the one and put it out, and it is prac- 
tically impossible to do the same thing with tlie other, and, 
like sensible people, we simjily resolved to accomplish what 
we could, rather than what we desired, but could not. 
/^ The humanitarian aspect of the Cuban question has 

/taken such hold of the public mind as to overshadow the 
J great underlying fact that it is not the misery jxr se of Cuba 
(_that affords the strongest justification of the United States, 



11 

but the iiKtidental injury wliicl), in consequence of thatC 
misery, has been inflicted upon this country. It might bea 
matter for very grave question whether the mere suffering 
causcxl by the effort of one of the Powers to suppress a 
domestic insurrection, even althougli accompanied by unusual 
exacerbations, would of itself justify forcible intervention; 
but, iu the present case, \vc are confronted with all this and 
in addition, have to suffer immense pecuniary losses, besides 
the anuoyance of an irritating question that has distiu'bed 
the national tranquility for three generations. I should 
myself very seriously doubt the policy of interference on 
purely sentimental grounds, notwithstanding the strong 
aj)jK'al they make to the best feelings of our nature, and to 
the traditions in which our own nationality was cradled ; for, 
in respect to questions of this sort, it is wisest, I think, for a 
people to face not merely the first cost of the attempt which 
may be measured with some degree of certainty, but the 
indefinite cost also of an experimental voyage on a shoreless 
sea. 

It may be conceded then, that there ought to be some other 
justification for interference than the mere fact that a civil 
war or a domestic insurrection produces the usual or even an 
unusual amount of suffering, for in such a case the fact that 
iu the effort to relieve it oiu- own people would suffer as much 
or more would present a difficult if not an unanswerable 
argument against intervention. The justification for inter- 
ference in ihe Cuban affair between Spain and her colony is 
to be found, as I luive before suggested, not in the injury 
inflicted upon the peisous.and the property of the insurgents, 
but iu the damage ret<ulting to the United States, as a con- 
sequence of that injury. 

From one point of view it is inipossible for one power 
to cause a legal injury to another by anything it may do in 
dealing with its own subjects and citizens in a state of revolt, 
and it is only, therefore, when this injury extends beyond the 
jurisdiction of the [)ower iuHIcting it, into the jurisdiction of 



12 

some ueigliboring State^ that the right of intervention can be 
righteously exercised. 

/ In stating this proposition, however, it must be remem- 

bered that the laws of municipal and of international society 
are established with reference to the ordinary events of human 
experience, and that cases arise sometimes when it is clear 
that by reason of the extraordinary character of the occur- 
rence the ordinary rules of law cannot be made to apply. 
And right here, remembering that the abstract right of the 
United States as a sovereign power to interfere cannot be 
denied, if it chooses to take the responsibility, the question 
arises whether an extraordinary state of affairs has not existed 
V in the Island of Cuba for three years, for which existing law 

Valid precedent fail entirely to furnish a satisfactory standard. 
Apart entirely from the incidental injury inflicted upon the 
United States, for which, on ordinary principles the abstract 
right of intervention might be justly exercised, the question 
is whether the character of the injury itself, as confined to 
the Island of Cuba, without regard to its extra territorial 
consequences, is not a fit subject for the same kind of inter- 
vention, justified by legal right and by every moral considera- 
tion that can enforce a duty. 

No man, in my opinion, can read the evidence embodied 
in our consular reports and as delivered by eye-witnesses 
of the highest ciiaracter, and hesitate a moment as to the 
answer to be given to such a question. It will not do to 
dismiss with a doubt or a sneer the just indignation excited 
by the atrocities described in this testimony, and so far from 
there being any cause to suspect the honesty of the indigna- 
tion it has created, it would seem to me that a ])erson was 
less than human who did not feel it. Admitting the right of 
the United States to intervene in virtue of its sovereignty and 
under its responsibility to public opinion and the great powers 
of the world, a right I submit that cannot be logically denied, 
then surely if ever right and duty did concur, the right as 
clear as tlie duty is strong, l)oth meet to suj)port the United 
States in its controversy with Spain. 



13 

There is aiioUier ;v8i)cct of this question, to vvhich no 
allusion has yet been made, but which seems to me, if any 
doubt could exist as to tiie rightfulness of the position 
assumed by the United States, ought to see that doubt forever 
at rest. It does not concern, however, except incidentally 
and indirectly, the I'ight to intervene, but affords an illus- ^ 
traled argument f(n- the necessity of exerting the right rather 
than for the existence of the right itself There is no writer 
on international law, and no authority on that subject that I 
am aware of, who does not concede, or, at all events does not 
deny, that when the internal condition of affairs, or the w 
municipal status of a sovereign State becomes a source of 
nuisance, menace or peril to another member of the family, it 
then becomes the right of that member to forcibly intervene 
ibr its own safety. These authorities admit that there are 
certain conditions which will justify the enforcement ot the 
right while they apj)ear to deny that tha sovereign power 
affected must in all cases determine for itself what the con- 
ditions are. They appear to reason on the subject along 
moral rather than legal lines, and to confound an absolute 
sovereign riffht with the occasion and circumstances when it 
may be proper to exercise it, and seek to establish a rule by 
an. imperfect consensus of opinion among themselves, as to 
what ought to be rather than lohat is. They all agree, however, 
as I have stated, that where a contiguous or other State, by 
means of imperfect organization, or disordered function, 
menaces the peace or welfare of a member of the family 
of States, still more, when as a consequence of malad- 
ministration, a direct injury has been inflicted upon a 
sister State, that the duty of intervention has the com- 
plete sanction of the law. On this concession, Avhat more 
terrible example of the internal condition of a country 
as affecting the lives of our own people could be 
afforded than the destruction of the Ilaine ? I say nothing 
of the pecuniary loss involved, because it can be readily 
computed and easily compensated, but for the lives lost in 
this awful calamity there is no compensation except in the 



14 

passionless justice of God. This, however, in passing. The 
point I am endeavoring to establish is, that a country so 
badly governed as to make possible such an accidentid mis- 
carriage of the police power, we will call it, as illustrate<l by 
this incident, is a fit subject for sovereign intervention and 
readjustment — and I was about to add, chastisement. 

In stating the proposition in this way, it will be noticed 
that there are two assumptions : first, that Spain is not 
officially responsible for the act in the sense that it was 
directly ordered by her authority ; and second, that the 
explosion was brought about by a cause external to the 
vessel itself. The first assumption is entirely favorable to 
Spain, conceding perhaps more than she is justly entitled to; 
and the second not only fits in with the surrounding circum- 
stances of the case, but is founded on the deliberate finding 
of a Court of Inquiry, instituted by this country after the 
most i)atient and searching investigation that the subject per- 
mitted. It is true that Spain prosecuted an independent 
inquiry herself into the cause of the disaster, and that the 
finding of her court was, that the Maine was blown up by a 
cause proceeding from the interior of the vessel, and of 
course beyond her control, and outside of the sphere of her 
responsibility ; but this finding was not only plainly per- 
functory, but there is room for that sort of suspicion which 
is the equivalent of knowledge, that it was designedly made 
and published in anticipation of the verdict of the United 
States Court for the express purpose, not only of forestalling 
its effect, but of providing an excuse for not making any 
other examination into the matter, or of involving the case 
in the endless toils of diplomatic fence. 

It is a fact that has escaped general notice in the discus- 
sion of this subject, that five days after the destruction of the 
Maine, to wit, on the twentieth day of February, 1898, and 
long before the divers employed by the Spanish authorities 
had made any investigation of the wreck at the bottom of 
the bay, that the Judge conducting the examination, styled 
the Court of Instruction, reported that enough had been 



15 

ascertained tlien (o justify him in declaring that the 31aine 
was blown nji by a foicc generated from the inside of the 
vessel. This report is so snggestive that it may not be out 
of place to give its e.xaet laiignage, as translated by the State 
Dejiartment at Washington. It ai)pears to be addressed to 
the Captain-General at Havana, and is as follows : 

" Excellent Sir : 

" Thinking it proi)er in view of the importance of the 
unfortunate accident occurring to the jNorth American iron- 
clad Maive, to mdicrpale, although in reserved character, 
something of that which in brief unit form part of the opinion 
of \he Fit^cal {altorjiey general) upon that which I undersign, 
and in case your Excellency should think it opportune and 
pro{)er to inform the Government of her Majesty thereof, I 
have the honor to express to your Excellency that from the 
judicial proceedings up to-day in the matter, with the inves- 
tigation of which you charged me immediately after the 
occurrence of the catastroi)he, it is disclosed in conclusive man- 
ner that the exj)losion was not caused by any action exterior 
to the boat, and that the aid lent by our officers and marines 
was brought about with true interest by all and in a heroic 
manner by some. It alone remains to terminate this dispatch 
that when the Court can hear the testimony of crew of the 
3Iaiiie and make investigation of its interior some light may 
be attained to deduce, if it is possible, the true original cause 
of the event produced in the interior of the ship. God guard 
your Excellency many years." 

The words so marked T have italicised, and from the 
whole context three things are apparent : 

First. — The desire and intention to anticipate the 
finding. 

. Second. — That both the Court and the Fiscal had deter- 
mined what the finding should be. 

Third. — That they had determined it in such a conclu- 
sive manner that there could be no doubt as to its truth, and 
that this finding entirely acquitted Spain of any responsibility 
for the catastrophe. 



16 

This conclusion was readied and reported, as I have 
stated, on the twentieth day of February, and presumably 
was communicated to the Peninsular Government, and that 
Government, on the tenth day of March, cabled the authori- 
ties in Havana that it was advisable that the proceedings in 
the investigation should be expedited as much as possible so 
that the report might " precede Americans'," and these 
authorities in turn, in a message marked confidential, trans- 
mitted the contents of this dispatch to the Court of Instruc- 
tion. As a matter of fact we all know that the Spanish 
report was given out for publication several weeks before the 
report of our Court was made known. 

In view of this report I think we have a perfect right, 
ill discussing the merits of the controversy, to disregard the 
finding of the Spanish Court altogether, not only as not sup- 
ported by the evidence, but as closely resembling a subterfuge 
which would be in entire accord with the traditional craft and 
crookedness of Spanish diplomacy. 

Assuming, then, that the Maine was destroyed by an 
external force generated and made effective on Spanish soil, 
and that the deed was committed without the sanction of the 
insular authority or of the Home Government, but happened 
in some mysterious way as yet unexplained, by an agency as 
yet unknown, we have the case of a vessel belonging to a 
State at ])eace with Spain, suddenly blown up at night and 
sunk in her waters, accompanied by a terrible sacrifice of life 
and limb, under circumstances of horror that daze and stag- 
ger the imagination. The case as stated, while relieving the 
Spanish Government of the charge of direct complicity, 
nevertheless involves it in a responsibility for the destruction 
of the Maine, that strongly illustrates and enforces the duty 
of intervention, because a Government that is too weak or 
careless to })rotect the lives and property of a friendly power 
within its jurisdiction, forfeits the exclusive right it has, to 
manage its own internal affairs by demonstrating its inca- 
pacity to do so, and necessarily places itself within the 



17 

right of" <lie injuird power (o assert the great law of sclf- 
l)reservatioii. 

No one would deny, I suppose, that it would be the 
duty of the Government of the United States to intervene if 
it eould be elearly shown that, in addition to the general 
disorder and disintegration of society existing in Cuba, the 
injurious consequences of which extend in a general way to 
this country, it was also a fact that such was the inefficiency 
of the police regulations, or such the turbulence of the popu- 
lation, that a Government ship under its own flag was not 
safe in the principal harbor of a friendly Power. The char- 
acter of the intervention would be determined by the objective 
of the Government, which, in the case stated, would not be 
Vvar per sc, with the destnu.-tion of the Maine, or the general 
insurrectionary condition of Cuba, as the casus belli ; but the 
pacification of the island and the restoration of order, as 
conditions necessary to our own security and tranquility. 
Whether the proofs are sufficient or not to establish the facts 
necessary to justify such an intervention is a matter entirely 
within the riglit of this Government to determine for itself, 
and to refuse to n.iaUe the determination, or to leave it to 
other Powers, few or many, to be determined for it, would 
amount to an abdication of its sovereignty; translated into / 
othei- terms, to international suicide. 

There is one more aspect of this question, to which I 
wish to make a brief reference. The Congress of the United 
States, in the joint resolutions, approved by the President, 
authorizing forcible intervention, expressly disclaims any 
intention to annex Cuba, or to acquire the island by right of 
conquest. The motives of the Government were supposed to 
be open to challenge, or misconstruction, and the desire was 
so strong to put the United States right before the world, 
that some such disavowal was deemed imperative, but it may 
be questioned whether it was either wise or necessary. What 
the future of Cuba will be no one knows with certainty, but 
it may safely l)e predicted that no other po\\er will be per- 
mitted to control her destiny in disregard of the paramount 



18 

interests of the United States. The geographical position of 
the island is such as to make it absolutely nocessary that it 
should not fall into hostile hands, and, in the varying vicis- 
situdes of nations, any hands, even those which are friendly 
now, may become hostile. 

Take up a map of this hemisphere and yon rind the 
island of Cuba stretching about 700 miles from its east- 
ern extremity in the Atlantic to the mouth of the Gulf of 
Mexico, into which it ])rotrudes, between tlie straits of 
Yucatan and Florida, only about a hundred miles from the 
nearest point in our own territory, and which it commands as 
absolutely as the United States controls the mouth of the 
Mississippi. As there is not an inch of territory drained by 
the Mississippi, the Missouri and their affluents, which is not 
vitally interested in free navigation to the Gulf, so it is 
equally true that all the commerce, both inward and outward, 
passing tbrougli the Gulf itself, is interested in preserving the 
gateway of the Atlantic as free as its own waters. Cuba, in 
the possession of a strong power, liostile to the United States, 
would be a standing menace to its security ; and, for this rea- 
son our statesmen from the earliest period have refused, in 
shaping the policy of the nation, to recognize any other destiny 
for the island than its continued occupation by Spain, or 
ultimate control by tlie United States. The great doctrine 
which bears the name of President Monroe was an active 
force in shaping the policy of the country before that states- 
man gave it the sanction of his administration ; and one of 
tiie most conspicuous instances in which it received practical 
application was the refusal by the United States, as early as 
1825, to permit Columbia and Mexico to take the first step 
that might have resulted in the alienation of the ishmd from 
the United States. 

Great Britain, Germany and France have all, at different 
times, cast longing eyes in the same direction, but this coun- 
try has invariably interposed a firm veto, the disregard of 
which was understood, and was meant to be so interpreted, 
as a declaration of war. In fact the distinctive foreign policy 



19 

of tlie United States, as far as it may be said to linvo had one, 
may be stated as embodied in tiie idea of ])reserving this liem- 
is|)here free and disencnmbered of the poliey of the European 
States, whose primary intei'ests were declared to have noticing 
in common witli our own ; a ])rincip]e, which, wiiile having 
its full a])])li('ati()n in the ease of Cuba, is reinforced by 
strategic considerations, which make it impossible to permit 
the island to pass under European control. 

It is true that the leaven of republican institutions since 
the declaration of the independence of this coiuitry has 
largely jiermcated European thought, and on the continent 
has resulted in the establishment of at least one republic of 
first-class power, and in moderating the s]>irit of absolutism 
more or less in all the continental States, and to this extent 
has removed the motive of the American propaganda, which, 
in the early days of the rejmblic, was wont to assert itself, 
with a spirit and enthusiasm now scarcely felt. The old 
Fourth of July address, with its ardent apostrophes to the 
genius of liberty and the rights of universal man has been 
displaced by a more or less frigid discussion of social ques- 
tions, affecting the happiness and well being of our own peo- 
])le. Even in the recent debates in Congress on this Cuban 
question, there is a notable absence on the whole of the prose- 
lyting spirit that distinguished the efforts of the Fathers, as, 
for example, the speech of Mr. Webster in behalf of Greece, 
delivered in the tlouse of Representatives in 1824. The 
inspira^tion of that remarkable address is a consecration of tlse 
Western Hemisphere to republican freedom, and an expres- 
sion of sympathy with any movement in the civilized world 
for the overthrow of despotic power. It was a calm, delib- 
erate notice to the allied ]K)wers in Euro])e that the United 
States was just as interested and just as determined in the 
propagation of free popular institutions as they were, or 
appeared to be, in the establishment of despotism. A speech 
from such a standpoint would be impossible now, not because 
we aie any the less devoted to a representative government 
founded on free suffrage, but because for a hundred years we 



20 

have been teachino- a li'f^son, both bv prceept and example, 
which the world has not been nnwilling to leai'n. 

The admission, however, that the liberalizing influcnee 
of free institutions has done much to secure them from dan- 
gerous assaults by increasing the number and power of their 
friends abroad, does not relieve us of the responsibility for 
maintaining inviolate the area consecrated to freedom by the 
pious foresight of the Fathers at home; nor have we been 
derelict in the discharge of tlie trust. Whatever changes in 
the form of government tiiat have taken ])lace in the two 
Americas, since the date of our Revolution, have been changes 
largely inspired by its spirit, and in no case has there been a 
voluntary lapse from the ideal at least of a free country, 
inseparable, of course, from the eccentricities of race and 
temperament. 

The attempt by Imperial France to displace the Govern- 
ment of Mexico and establish in its stead a monarchy passed 
unrebuked for awhile, but it was not because the statesmen of 
the country were not full}' alive to the danger of the pi'ece- 
dent and the extent that it infringed uj)on the declared policy 
of the country, but because the countiy itself was then imliap- 
pily divided and too weak to resent the interference. The 
very moment, however, our difficulties were composed, and 
we were in a situation to call others to account, notice was 
served on France that the continued occupation of Mexico in 
support of the unfortunate Maximilian was offensive to the 
United States, and was soon followed up by the comjilete 
withdrawal of her military forces and the dowiitall of the 
monarchy. This policy, so early proclaimed and so vital to 
the preservation of our institutions, will guai-antee to Cuba 
the peaceful evolution of her destiny, which sooner or later 
will stand revealed in a land smiling witli plenty, in control 
of the vigorous Anglo-Saxon, and in the realization of the 
highest ideals of representative democracy. 

But if such will be the future of ('uba, wiiat will be the 
position of the United Stales? Unquestionably, this 
Government will have taken a marked step forwards in the 



21 

devclopnicnt of a dih-tinct foreign policy quite repugnant to 
the attitude of international isolation, wliieli it lias previously 
maintained. The United States, not only as the result of the 
influence of Washington and the impressions made by the 
farewell address, in the early stages of its career, but as a 
consequence of it.-r situation as a new and experimental 
member of the family of States, and a weak one in unde- 
veloped resources, was, perforce, constrained to adopt a 
purely domestic policy. 

As a string of feeble seaboard States on the Atlantic 
coast, looFely held t(^gether under a constitution which needed 
the vitalizing genius of a Marshall to expand as well as to 
expound, and the stiess of a ei\il war to test and confirm, the 
United States vas a very different body from the nation of 
to-day, that has filled up the continent between the two 
oceans with a united people, compounded of the best bloods 
and beliefs of the civilized globe, rounded and com[)acted 
into one imperial and hai'monious wliole, and at the touch of 
a button, placed in instantaneous communication with all its 
parts and the outside \vorld. 

The })oHcy of a nation can no more remain the same 
than the people themselves, or the natural face of the soil that 
they occupy. As there is a constant transformation going on 
in tlie earth's surface by the action of natural forces, and a 
still more marked change in the physical landscape produced 
by the labor and art of man, so this alteration finds its fit 
analogue in the internal changes wi'ought in the supraphysical 
and spiritual condition of the people. National character, 
like individual, is developed according to the law of its 
environment, and this environment is subject to change and 
modification as the result not only of causes proceeding from 
the society itself, but of external influences. 

No man shapes his own character, and although we often 
hear the expression, " a self-made man," meaning a phase of 
individuality manifested in some particular ca.se, as if it were 
the immediate creation of the individual himself, yet there is no 
more truth in the expression than if we were to say that the 



22 

same individual had actually created himself both body and 
sold. To the extent of seizing upon opportunities, and 
having the clear eyes which distinguish between the real ajid 
the simulated, there is a limited sense in which a man may 
be said to have made himself what he is, but even in ihis 
respect large allowance must be made for the operation of 
hereditary and other favorable influences, the absence of 
which determines, or helps to determine, the career of his 
less fortunate neighl)or. 

The quality that we designate in the individual as char- 
acter is an indefinable something that springs into exist- 
ence, not spontaneously, but as the joint and labored product 
of the sul)jective nature of man and the objective sphere of 
his social relations; and so it is out of this eternal play of 
action and reaction, of adjustment and readjustment, between 
the internal and external forces, that the individual is slowly 
evolved. Nations are no more self-made than individuals, 
and national policy, which may be called the working plan 
of the nation, is as much the creation of objective, or causes 
external to itself, as the career of an individual. The balance 
of power doctrine, which has largely shaped European policy, 
whence was it derived ? It originated in a necessity external 
to each of the States interested in its preservation as a para- 
mount rule of public law, and as the result of an environ- 
ment which must be accepted as a consequence of the exist- 
ence of the States themselves, and of their relations to each 
other; but, while thirt is its objective aspect, it is plain that 
the domestic condition of each State adjusting itself to this 
external status must undergo serious and radical changes. 

The inunense armament required by each State, or, at 
least, by each of the great military States, to preserve the so- 
called balance causes an exhaustive draft on the resources 
of the people, reducing the number of active producers in 
the pr()])ortion of the increase of mere consumers, and in an 
infinite number of \\ays affects the life of individuals and so 
influences the aggregate life of the whole body of the peoi)]e. 

International law, as well as municipal law, in any of 

LofC. 



23 

its forms, organic or otlierwise, represents the slow growth 
of principles which originate in the necessities of the hnman 
being. Mr. Gladstone is reported as saying that the Consti- 
tntion of the United States was the greatest raonnnient of the 
brain and purpose of man ever put forth in a single effort; 
but it is (juite certain that this great charter of liberty, regu- 
lated by law, as well as evcjy other advance in the develop- 
ment of political science, not only has the ages back of it, but 
in it. 

The principle that each State in the family of States, 
however small in territory or feeble in })opulati()n and 
resources, is the equal of every other State, and upon which 
the balance of power doctrine rests, was not invented until tlie 
discovery was forced upon the European States by a long series 
of bloody and devastating wars. So the United States, in 
the earlier stages of its history, having no immediate interest 
in the practical application of the doctrine and having no inter- 
est in the family troubles of Europe, gradually absorbed the 
idea that the best policy for it was to pursue its own quiet 
way in the development of its natural resources and to let the 
rest of the world do as it pleased. This conception of national 
policy, although it may appear from our present standpoint 
narrow and illiberal, yet, when viewed in the clear light of 
historical retrospect, was not only just the conception which 
the situation of the United States might have been expected 
to produce, but also what its necessities then demanded. 
And it will be observed that none of our statesmen, even 
Mr. Monroe himself, in the most conspicuous departure ever 
made from the line indicated by this policy, went further than 
to declare that an extension of the European system to any 
portion of this hemisphere would be dangerous to our peace 
and safety, while he, at the same time, expressly disclaimed 
any intention to interfere with any of the existing colonies or 
dependencies of Europe. 

Even in that limited conception, however, the genius of 
English diplomacy, speaking by the mouths of Canning and 
Brougham, saw the opportunity for a generous expansion 



24 

wliicli ultimately would draw the Uuitcd States out of its 
j)rovincial shell into the 'world-wide eirele of iuternatioual 
sympathies aud interests. These great statesmen were quick 
to perceive, that a deelaiation on the part of the United 
States, that her own peculiar institutions were so dear to her 
and that she was so convinced that they were the best for all 
the free countries on this side of the Atlantic as to lead her to 
resent any interference with these countries as an encroach- 
ment on her own rights, was not only a step in the direction 
indicated, but was such a deliberate facing about as to make 
return to her old attitude of indifference and isolation impos- 
sible. 

What was so clearly perceived by these eminent men was 
gradually being worked out by the two forces I have men- 
tioned, that is, by the internal life of the nation accommodat- 
ing itself to exterual cireumstances, and the reciprocal inter- 
play of these activities. Chief among these external influences 
is to be reckone 1 the Civil War, which resulted in establishing 
American nationality. Such a nationality, it is true, had 
existed from the declaration of independence, but the senti- 
ment was so diffused and weakened by an undefined, and in 
some quarters, an exaggerated notion of the paramount obli- 
gations of State allegiance, that it can be scarcely said that 
the simple idea of love of country, which the European calls 
love of the fatherland, can be said to have taken root in the 
American heart. 

The North sprang to arms in defence of the Constitu- 
tion, but the Soutii was equally resolute in fighting for what 
it claimed to be its rights ; and between the two, one might 
well ask where was the sentiment of patriotism common to 
the whole country ? The Civil War in fact demonstrated that 
there were such radical differences of opiuion between the two 
sections on questions of constitutional construction, that noth- 
ing short of a resort to arms could settle them ; and it also 
proved that there was in one section at least a feeling of bit- 
terness and enmity toward the other, that must completely 
disappear before the single love of country would be felt in 



25 

all of its parts as the common sentiment of all of the people. 
]f the Civil War had simply demonstrated this unfortunate 
condition and had done nothing more, great indeed would 
have been its cnise, hut, fortunately for us, it proved itselfto 
be in the end the most effectual remedy for the evil it ex- 
posed. The United States is not only one in theory, as Web- 
ster would have it to be, and as the school of Calhoun fought 
hard against its becoming, but it is in principle and practice 
one country iu a sense that it never was before in its history, 
that is, in the sense that sectional hate has been obliterated 
and vexed questions of constitutional interpretation have 
been settled forever. 

Another of these causes has been the growth of the 
people, the successive additions of States and the gradual 
pushing forward of the frontier of civilization to the shore 
of the Pacific. A population of over 70,000,000 of people 
occupying a continent, the shores of which are washed by 
the two great oceans of the world, now the convenient high- 
ways of commercial intercourse and travel, and located mid- 
way between the aggressive civilization of Eui'ope and the 
expiring civilization of the East, cannot, even if it would, 
maintain an attitude of passive neutiality, in a movement 
which voluntarily or involuntarily carries along with it 
every power within the sweep of its orbit. 

It might well be contended that a people as insignifi- 
cant in power during the first fifty years of its existence as 
the people of the United States, and whose relations with 
Europe were on the Atlantic side and almost altogether of 
a commercial character, had no interest in any scheme of 
foreign policy outside of protecting its citizens and preserv- 
ing its own peace and security; but the effect of the argu- 
ment disajjpears with the changed condition of the country. 
The United States is confronted with Europe in Asia, as 
one of the inevitable consequences of her own growth and 
expansion Pacific-wards, as well as the ambitious designs of 
the, European Powers to acquire territory and influence in 
quarters not under the protection of the balance of power 



26 

doctrine. With Europe content to remain in Europe, the 
policy of tlie United States was clear, to attend to her own 
affairs, and steer clear of entangling alliances; but with 
Europe manoeuvering for position and eventual empire, on 
the side of Asia opposite to our west coast, the same pre- 
science of statesmanlike apprehension, which consecrated 
the whole of America to liberty, may well take Avhat was 
denounced in Moni'oe's day, and what is sneered at now as 
premature notice. 

It is impossible, of course, that the United States should 
declare any fixed policy w ith reference to this movement, as 
it felt bound to declare with reference to the threatened 
interference by the Holy Alliance with the South American 
Republics, for there is nothing in the movement as yet to 
threaten the essential interests or safety of this country, but 
there is quite enough in the situation to justify us in main- 
taining a powerful searchlight over the whole field of 
operations. 

National alliances, like human friendships, in most 
cases, are but the outcome of temporary interests ; but, as it 
happens sometimes in the friendship between man and man, 
so between nations, there are natural bases of union which 
will outlive the accidental and transient circumstances which 
may have brought them together. It may be well for the 
United States to bear this in mind, and in recognizing the 
inevitable consequences of her changed relation in the family 
of States, to accept the proffered friendship from that quarter, 
where all the associations that spring from a common 
lineage and language can only be found. It may be well for 
her, too, in the same connection, to renieruber that in no 
otiier quarter of the world can she find the same high aspi- 
rations and ennobling ideals, the fruition of which has 
enriched the history of the race with the most enduring 
examples of human greatness. 

If Europe is to civilize Asia and not merely to make 
partition of her territory in which the customs and the insti- 
tutions of the native population are to be maintained and 



27 

continued, then it is the duty of the United States, as well 
as lier interest, to align herself in sympathy and to whatever 
extent such a bond of union may carry her, witli that Power 
to which she owes, not merely the essential principles of her 
own government, but whatever is precious and enduring in 
Christian culture and civilization. It may, probably will be, 
that in the rude shock of conflicting interests hereafter to 
arise, the strands in the bond of this particular union may 
be twisted or broken, but there is no power in time or vicis- 
situde that can change the elemental and eternal fact of the 
brotherhood of the Anglo-Saxon race. 

These, then, a})pear to be the most striking consequences 
of international importance flowing from the Cuban ques- 
tion : a dej)arture by the United States from its established 
policy of non-interference with European matters, and the 
beginning of a new career on the stage of the world, in 
sympathetic associiation with one of the master spirits of the 
age, and the undisputed mistress of the seas. What will be 
the outcome of this new departure no one can foresee, and 
many will deplore the necessity, or doubt the exj)ediency, of 
any departure at all from the cherished policy and traditions 
under which the country has lived so long and prospered, but 
let no one despair of the Republic. It will be the better and 
the stronger for this quickening of its humanity, and for the 
enlargement of the scope of its activity, from a national to an 
international horizon. It will feel a new impulse in its heart 
and new blood coursing through all of its veins, and it will 
lift itself proudly from the slough of selfishness and money- 
getting, into which it has fallen, and where it threatened to 
flounder forever, erect and radiant as an athlete who knows 
his strength and rejoices in the race he has to run. 



